Wednesday, May 18, 2011

America's International Welfare State

I just got an article published in Young Americans for Liberty's newest issue of its campus magazine, Young American Revolution, which is read by thousands of students on campuses across the country. My article was featured alongside pieces by vast right-wing conspirator Grover Norquist, Congressman Ron Paul, Senator Rand Paul, and bestselling author and historian Tom Woods. Here's an excerpt:

America's International Welfare State

That welfare programs are ineffective and outside the purview of a proper government is nearly axiomatic to most self-described conservatives.

...Yet while opposing welfare at home, American conservatives have been duped by internationalist progressives into supporting and paying for a massive global welfare state under the pretense of national security. This has allowed these Wilsonian interventionists to grow government to unprecedented levels and achieve their dreams of a worldwide nanny state with uncritical support from conservatives, who now believe that empire abroad keeps us safe at home.

But the projection of military power into Europe, for instance, doesn't make Americans safer. It makes Europeans safer, but Americans it only makes poorer. Can't Europe defend itself from the threat of terrorism or the spectre of resurgent Russian imperialism?

If not, it's because the European economy is incapable of sustaining sufficient defense spending in addition to the early retirements and lavish benefits of the European welfare state. In this case, American "defense spending" amounts to little more than making American taxpayers shoulder the burden for European entitlement programs.